


Unsolved

by neversaydie



Series: Real Live Journos [1]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Journalism, Buzzfeed Unsolved References, Closeted Character, F/M, M/M, More tags to be added, brief mention of historical suicide, buzzfeed unsolved au, ghosts are real???, sammy and his anxiety still exists, sammy your jack crush is showing, so many closet jokes, there's so much chaotic bi energy in this, vlogging - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-15 02:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: Ben is already sitting in the back seat, peppiness explained by the absolutely massive Starbucks cup shoved between his thighs because the rental doesn't have a cup holder back there. They're gonna have to stop for him to pee before they even get out of the West Side, Sammy just knows it."This why they call you Shotgun?" Ben snarks as soon as he gets in, and Sammy would bet he's been sitting on that joke for a while from how pleased with himself he looks. "You pretend to get carsick so you get to sit up front every time?""You want me to sit back there with you and find out?" Sammy raises his eyebrows and Ben hurriedly shakes his head. They've found out through doing more than one food challenge for someone else's channel that if one of them barfs, they'll both barf - although luckily the actual barfing never makes the final edit.So far.[in which the ghoul boys vlog, there's a bunch of unrequited crushes and some major chaotic bi energy, and maybe even some real ass ghosts.]





	1. crush bagels

**Author's Note:**

> BFU AU. I don't even know.

It's far, far too early in Sammy's book when the minivan pulls up outside his apartment building, but he perks up a little when Jack hops out of the driver's seat to help him load his bags in. It's early enough that LA is sort of cool despite the season, and Sammy has a moment of really missing the Midwest before he remembers winter and the feeling passes without a trace.  

Ben is already sitting in the back seat, peppiness explained by the absolutely massive Starbucks cup shoved between his thighs because the rental doesn't have a cup holder back there. They're gonna have to stop for him to pee before they even get out of the West Side, Sammy just knows it.

"This why they call you Shotgun?" Ben snarks as soon as he gets in, and Sammy would bet he's been sitting on that joke for a while from how pleased with himself he looks. "You pretend to get carsick so you get to sit up front every time?"

"You want me to sit back there with you and find out?" Sammy raises his eyebrows and Ben hurriedly shakes his head. They've found out through doing more than one food challenge for someone else's channel that if one of them barfs, they'll both barf - although luckily the actual barfing never makes the final edit. So far.

Sammy's surprised when Jack tosses a warm paper bag into his lap before they start off again, and shoots his producer a curious look before opening it.

"You got me a bagel?" It's a nice one too, from the good bakery a few blocks over that Sammy raids for bread on special, carb-driven occasions. He took Jack once after they wrapped up a local ghost hunting episode, when it was dawn and they were both too hopped-up on caffeine to sleep, and they got bagels that were still warm from the oven... and Sammy definitely didn't fall in love with the guy a little. "I thought you went to Starbucks."

"You don't like sweet stuff for breakfast, and their sandwiches are shitty," Jack shrugs, eyes on the road, and Sammy's stomach does a funny little flip before Ben makes an exaggerated _awww_ sound from behind them and ruins it. Jack shoots him a glare in the mirror and Sammy is very distracted by the way his forearm flexes as he turns the wheel. "We're just not gonna talk about that cupcake you got Emily, then. With the heart on it."

"I- No- Listen-"

"Are we rolling yet?" Sammy asks nervously, interrupting Ben's indignant verbal keysmashing. The van is already rigged up with the front camera, and despite their protests, none of them get a veto on what makes it through the final edit and into the Unsolved episodes.

Jack and Sammy are… complicated. They're not an item - Sammy is ostensibly straight, he's never said anything different, but occasionally breaks into cold sweats when the internet tries to tell him he's not - but it's impossible to deny that there's something there beyond simple friendship. However, living life on camera means that, for Sammy at least, exploring what that could be isn't an option.

Fans of the show shipping him and Ben together is bad enough. Ben finds it far too flattering, occasionally passing fanfictions he finds particularly accurate (or especially ridiculous) around the office email chain, but Sammy has literally had nightmares about his parents finding out about this stuff because they're not exactly… liberal. So he and Jack continue their bromance-which-isn't-a-bromance, and the internet remains blissfully unaware of Sammy's endless angst.

But only by virtue of them being careful. Which means not accidentally non-flirting on camera.

"Nah. Gonna wait until we're off the interstate," Jack shoots him a knowing little smile as Sammy breathes out and starts unwrapping his breakfast. "Can't expose Benny's shameless flirting with the lovely Ms Potter, now can we?"

"I don't flirt! I've never flirted in my life! I don't even know what that is!" Ben protests loudly from the back, and Sammy wishes he'd cut himself off one or two beers earlier last night because wow, that's a lot of noise. Ben insists it's his New York upbringing which makes him yell so much… although they're all pretty sure it's just him. "And it's _Ben_ , jackass."

It's _Ben_ for approximately fifteen more minutes, until they pull up at another apartment block as Emily waves from the kerb and Ben gets all heart-eyed and gross.

"Hey guys, hi Benny," Emily climbs tiredly into the back after stowing her massive rucksack with the rest of the gear, and Jack and Sammy shoot each other a look when _she_ doesn't get told off for the nickname. Typical. "Are we rolling?"

"Nah, get some sleep," Jack gestures vaguely as he pulls back onto the road and Sammy is once again very distracted by his hands. The guy has nice arms in general, it's not that weird. "Although can we switch in a couple hours? I'm fucked."

"Sure," she's already kicked her shoes off and curled up in her seat, dressed in the floral overalls she usually wears for comfortable travel and crew work, and it's obvious she's going to be snugged up against Ben's side soon enough. "How long is this drive?"

"Six-ish, depending on the traffic."

"Okay, just wake me up twenty minutes before you want to switch," she yawns expansively. None of them ever seem to get enough sleep, and this morning is no exception.

"Late night?" Sammy asks quietly, as Ben and Emily both put headphones on (Emily has the shitty AirBud Apple ones and buyer's remorse, while Ben's are huge over-ear cans which double for sound work) to settle in for the ride.

"My sister's in town," Jack nods, and Sammy is slightly disturbed by how attractive he is even with dark circles under his eyes. It's an ongoing issue. "She's breaking some top secret ICE story tomorrow, so I took her out on the town before she gets arrested."

"She give you any details?"

"Please. As if she'd let there be the tiniest chance _Buzzfeed_ could scoop her," Jack snorts, and Sammy grins through a mouthful of bagel.

Lily Wright is a _real_ journalist, or so she says, dwelling firmly in investigative print and broadcast media… unlike her brother, the family black sheep who's found his niche in blogging, vlog production, and podcasts. He's actually extremely good at putting together the site's more hard-hitting articles (the move into news has been good for him, he was starting to go a little stir crazy compiling lists of Amazon products and researching expensive places to get hot dogs), although his family seem to see his career as a complete waste of a journalism degree.

Still, Jack takes it all in stride and even goes out of his way to email his family the most ridiculous projects he's involved in (they were supposedly proud but 'surprised' when Unsolved took off) just to annoy them further. Sammy doesn't understand how the idea of disappointing your parents could result in anything but cold sweats and panic attacks, but he admires Jack's easygoing attitude towards the whole thing.

They settle into the familiar stop-start of LA traffic without much incident, Emily and Ben already out cold and snuggled together like a couple of puppies in the back seat. Sammy tries not to fall asleep along with them as the sky starts to brighten, but the radio is tuned into some quiet acoustic pop he doesn't recognise and it's hard to keep his eyes-

He jerks his head up with a start and a sharp intake of breath, half-formed image of some dark void yawning out in front of him as he tries to figure out where he is.

And then Jack's warm hand is squeezing his thigh, and Sammy's heart rate drops back down to 'nervous around not-so-secret crush' rather than 'terrified'.

"Hey, you're okay," Jack knows Sammy has nightmares - the whole team does, they've shared enough rooms on location and _accidentally_ deleted enough footage of him and Ben sleeping in haunted houses overnight - and can recognise one starting from a mile away. "You want me to keep you awake?"

"No, I'm good," Sammy shakes his head, blearily. He's silently pleased Jack is still touching his leg, despite his foggy mind. "S'just because I was fighting falling asleep. I might have to nap, sorry man."

"Hey, get some rest," Jack's hand slides down to squeeze his knee this time before letting go, and Sammy is absurdly comforted by the motion even as his eyelids droop. "I'll wake you up before I turn the camera on."

"'Kay," Sammy sinks down in his seat and starts a little when Jack puts Ben's discarded hoodie over his shoulders as a blanket. "Thanks, Jack."

"Any time, buddy," Jack's voice has taken on the oddly soft quality which always makes Sammy's heart do funny flips in his chest, but thankfully he's too sleepy to do anything stupid in response and embarrass himself. Even if the cameras aren't rolling, he needs to be careful - one false move, and he could ruin everything.

Sammy falls asleep to the ghost of Jack's touch on his leg and the sound of the radio. This time, he doesn't dream.


	2. union of harassed dads

"This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we're investigating the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in San Francisco," Ben gestures to the old yet opulent hotel lobby around them, as Sammy gives the camera his trademark unimpressed stare. "We'll be trying to answer the question-"

"Dude, your shirt's eating the mic," Jack cuts him off from where he's holding the boom mic above them out of shot, Ben's oversized headphones currently blocking out pretty much anything ambient so he can get the audio feed clearly. "All I can hear is rustling."

"Leave it in, it's as close as we ever get to catching 'ghost voices' on camera," Sammy isn't ashamed to bust out the air quotes, although they do make it more difficult to move out of the way when Ben smacks him on the arm. "That's abuse, I'm calling my union."

"You know they won't let us unionise," it had been the topic of a lengthy, rambling communal vent in the van on the way up (which they're definitely going to have to delete _before_ they hand the footage in for edit), and Sammy hopes he hasn't just set Ben off again. He can get… shouty. "Unless you're talking about the Union of Harassed Dads, which you're founder and president of."

"I was democratically elected, at least," Sammy mutters, deadpan, and doesn't miss the way Jack snorts out a dorky little laugh at the comment. It's unfairly cute. Sammy is in a permanent state of being victimised by his cuteness, these days.

"Little focus, guys," Emily is usually as willing to goof off as the rest of them, but her patience runs a little shorter behind the camera. The company is pretty forward thinking and good about equality issues, but it's still harder for her to get a director credit on a shoot than any of them. "Sammy, fix his mic before we all die of old age, please."

"I can fix my own mic," Ben grumbles, but doesn't stop Sammy from untangling the equipment and re-clipping it somewhere it isn't going to get drowned out by chiffon. At least, that's what he _thinks_ the sheer fabric of Ben's shirt is.

Their shoots are often in abandoned locations which curtail Ben's adventurous fashion choices by temperature alone (although he's got some truly garish sweaters he's not afraid to bust out on camera), but given the chance his tastes run to the androgynous end of the spectrum. Unlike Sammy, who dresses purely to avoid being noticed, Ben isn't content until he stands out from the crowd.

It's part of what makes them work so well together as a team, and why they've taken off online. Fans enjoy the contrast between Sammy's sardonic scepticism and deadpan humour, and Ben's wide-eyed belief in the supernatural and insistence that they're respectful to the ghosts (apparitions) they 'encounter'. Ben's social media presence is wall to wall memes and political rants, whereas Sammy drops into Twitter to post a blurry picture of his shoe and then disappears for another three weeks.

They're weird, but they work.

"Okay, you're good," Jack gives them a thumbs up and they get back to the show. They're pressed for time in this location, seeing as it's still a functioning hotel and they've only got permission to film in the lobby for so long, so further snarking will just have to wait.

"The hotel has had numerous reports of spiritual activity over the decades, including a hanging man in the basement and a pair of star-crossed lovers who jumped from an upstairs balcony," Sammy refrains from making a joke about Ben's 'theory voice' (the overly-careful tone he gets when reading a prepared script), as his co-host turns to him. "What d'you think, Sammy? Are we more likely to find a dead guy downstairs, or a pair of apparitions up top?"

"I don't believe in love, so probably the dead guy," he deadpans straight at the camera, and Ben sighs audibly.

"Sammy Stevens starting out dark tonight, folks. Let's take a look at the history of the hotel and where some of these legends may have come from."

"Okay, cut," Emily calls from behind the camera, and Jack lowers the boom mic to roll out his shoulders… which doesn't immediately take up all of Sammy's attention at all. Seriously, it's an ongoing issue. "We're gonna get about twenty minutes of general discussion here for edit. Make sure you bring up-"

"Can I take a bathroom break first?" Ben pipes up, which predictably makes everyone else groan. The kid downs eight coffees a day and then wonders why he has to pee constantly, Sammy will never understand it. "I'll be quick!"

"Just turn off your mic this time, I don't need to hear your commentary again," Jack takes off his headphones anyway, just in case, as Ben keeps to his word and hurries off to the lobby bathroom. "I swear, one day he'll get a jump scare at the wrong moment and literally piss himself."

"And then we'll get a _whole_ different kind of fan," Sammy mutters, trying not to smile too much when Jack snorts. At least someone finds his stupid jokes funny, even if Emily is giving them both a _look_ he can't quite read.

"Niche content," Jack nods, solemnly, and this time Emily is the one who laughs. Even when she's trying to be sensible… at heart, she's just as silly as the rest of them.

It's a smooth start to the shoot, all told, and Sammy is very relieved that they're not in another 'haunted' abandoned insane asylum with no heat or lights. Shooting in a working building is a very different animal, even if they have to deal with some weird looks from the desk clerk when they start talking about the idea of ghostly sex noises coming from hotel rooms.

("But how could you tell it was a ghost, if it was coming from upstairs?"

"Hah,  _coming_."

"... remind me why we make this show, again?")

The 'investigation' itself is one of their less creepy ones, which Ben seems pretty glad about. Personally, Sammy loves to see him almost have a heart attack every time a door creaks or the wind blows, but it's also pretty adorable how inordinately relieved Ben seems every time they _don't_ find a demon lurking in each new room they enter.

When the show first started it was just the two of them, with Sammy snarking at Ben from behind the camera as they explored various abandoned locations and Ben had several near panic attacks a night from fear. Sammy never really intended to be in front of the camera, but their dynamic proved to be a fan favourite, and the more budget they were given, the more he felt obliged to go along with what Buzzfeed analytics said was successful.

He regrets that attitude entirely when they get up to the third floor corner bedroom.

"Room thirteen, really?"

"It's 313, technically," Jack appears on camera briefly, as he occasionally does, to give them the room key. He's also got a bit of a cult following among their fans, although they mostly like to describe him as a cryptid since he so rarely shows up in an episode. Sammy had totally not been offended when he found out people shipped Jack and Ben rather than Jack and him. Not at all.

"Okay, so here we are in room thirteen," Ben narrates as he opens the door, and Sammy rolls his eyes expansively because _of course_ he sticks with the horror movie version of things. "This is reportedly where Patrick O'Connell and James March stayed the night before they jumped off the roof back in the nineteen-"

"Balcony, they jumped off the balcony," Emily corrects from behind the camera, and Ben grimaces before re-doing the take automatically.

"Shit, sorry. This is reportedly where Patrick O'Connell and James March stayed the night before they jumped off the balcony back in the nineteen-twenties," he crosses the threshold but doesn't turn on the lights, of course. "As the story goes, the men's families found out about their relationship and didn't take it well, given the time period."

"So people have always been shitty, is what we're learning," Sammy quips before following Ben into the room.

As soon as he passes through the doorway, a strange, cold feeling overtakes Sammy. The sense of _wrong_ is nearly overwhelming, and he feels sick to his stomach for a moment as the room spins around him. He has to steady himself against the wall quickly, which neither Ben nor the camera misses.

"Dude, you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just got dizzy for a second," the feeling passes as quickly as it came on, and he straightens up while trying to ignore the sense of foreboding which has settled deep in his chest. He doesn't know how he knows it, but they shouldn't be in here.

"That could be a sign of spiritual activity," Ben points out excitedly, and Sammy really wishes he wouldn't right now. "I've always said you're more sensitive than you-"

"Spiritual activity, low blood sugar, who's to say?" He catches Jack's eye and gives him a little nod, because he's on health and safety and is the one who'll get into trouble if one of them faints and hits their head or something. Both he and Emily look concerned, but they're on a schedule here and Sammy's not going to hold them up. "Let's just get your noisy shriek box over with."

"It's not a- It's a _highly_ scientific piece of equipment…" Sammy gives the camera a deadpan look when Ben starts the familiar rant, and that's enough to keep things moving. He still feels nauseous and panicky in here, but he figures they can just get this over with as fast as possible and get the hell out of there.

Which isn't what happens, of course, because the universe just _loves_ to fuck with Sammy on a good day - and this already is shaping up to be a terrible, no good, very bad day indeed.

The spirit box turns up nothing (except what Sammy tries to convince Ben is part of someone's pizza order), so Emily has the bright idea of doing their isolation challenges in the room's walk-in closet instead. Sammy instinctively knows, from the second she says it, that the last thing in the world he should do is walk into that closet… but Ben is already gearing up to shut himself in and if Sammy says something, it'll only draw more attention to him being uncomfortable in here.

Jack puts a questioning hand on his arm, out of shot, and Sammy forces a smile before they start rolling again. The internet is already determined to find 'evidence' that he's not as straight as he says he is, he's not about to freak out in the gay death room to give people more ammunition.

He even keeps it together through his own five minutes of isolation, keeping up a sardonic, one-sided conversation with an imaginary ghost to make sure he stays on-brand. Sammy's pretty sure he does a decent job of maintaining the front that he's not scared, even as fear creeps through his mind like tar and his eyes make up moving shapes in the dark.

It's all okay… until he can't open the door when Ben calls time.

"Ben," he tries the handle again, but the door is definitely locked. If this is Ben's doing, he's going to kick his tiny little ass from here to Ohio and back again. "Ben, this isn't funny. Open the door."

"It's not locked, dude," Ben rattles the handle from the other side, and Sammy feels the unease in his chest crystallise into panic. He knew he shouldn't have come in here. He usually requires facts before he makes decisions, but this is _one fucking time_ he wishes he would have listened to his instincts.

"What's wrong?" Emily sounds concerned, as a harder rattle at the door tells Sammy that Jack has got involved. If _he_ can't open the door, as the strongest of their little team, then they're fucked.

"Sammy's stuck in the closet."

"Well… that's ironic."

" _Ben_."

"Isn't he claustrophobic?"

"Sammy, are you sure it isn't… No, it's a key lock. Fuck, how is it stuck?"

"The comments section is gonna have a field day with this."

"Ben!"

Sammy sinks down the door to sit on the floor with a groan. Shit. Why couldn't he have just settled for a career in radio?


End file.
